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TS Prowling Beta Patch Notes

JUNE 2016PROWLING v1.0BETA TESTING PATCH NOTES (Topside)These Beta patch notes are taken from our Closed Beta Testing sessions, and are subject to change before the live version is released. Any and all changes will be updated and reflected here. Tutorial descriptions of this feature will become available in the LEARN category before or when the feature is released, and the Roadmap and Live Updates sections will also reflect the feature news.

TOPSIDE PROWLING

OverviewExplore the mortal world of Topside through text-based adventures! Through quick single scenarios and winding multiple choice experiences, discover loads of new loot, fight difficulty-scaled bosses, earn legendary rewards, and gather achievements from your wins.

Prowling Access

- Prowling is accessed on the Homepage via the Smart menu. Every twelve hours, prowl up to (8) times for free. Earn free prowls while prowling or purchase Instinct Points to seamlessly extend prowls.

- Free prowl points regenerate to (8) points every (12) hours. When Free Prowls are fully regenerated, the home page Smart Menu will offer an alert (Time to Prowl!).

- Once Free Prowl points are completely consumed, a seamless transfer to Instinct Points is used to continue prowls. Visual cues are present on the prowl button to denote the change. The Free Prowl button is brown. When transferred to IP mode, the button will be purple and the IP icon will be displayed on the Prowl button. In IP mode, each prowl costs (1) Instinct Point. Players can choose not to use instinct point prowls by exiting prowling and returning to the main game.

- When free prowls and Instinct Points are completely consumed, pressing Prowl again will result in a dialog that says “You need more instinct points to prowl”. Prowling becomes disabled until free prowls are regenerated or an Instinct Point purchase is made.

Prowling Components

- A single scenario automatically consumes (1) free prowl point (or Instinct Point when out of free prowls) and describes one short adventure, resulting in a positive or negative scenario ending. Positive outcomes reward, negative outcomes penalize. - A multiple scenario automatically consumes (1) free prowl point (or Instinct Point when out of free prowls), but can massively extend your playtime depending on your choices and the laws of chance. Choosing choice options within a multiple scenario is done at no cost.

Multiple Scenarios

- Multiple scenarios end depending on your choices and the laws of chance, which may also dictate rewards or penalties. Reaching the best outcome in a multiple scenario rewards with an excellent loot payout. Story length does not always guarantee best rewards.

- Multiple scenarios are plot-based stories. They migrate between multiple button options in the event there is an important choice to be made, but may also only offer one button choice to move the story ahead. As each story is different, given button options are dependant on the scenario.

- Multiple scenarios are indicated by their respective graphic, including the title to each story. Another indicator is the first set of choices will display below the graphic and story.

- Choices and choice buttons on multiple scenarios are designed to change positions on visit. Button positions are random and as such they may appear to have remained in one position on occasion.

- Safe Travel Notes are attained as rare drops from Fledgling, Adept, and Noble bosses and are guaranteed drops drops from Champion and Legendary bosses.

- Collected Safe Travel Notes are stored in Passage (3) of the catacombs. Other access points are Catacombs Passage (4) (in the given Travel Permissions recipe), and on any Boss page given to the location you’re collecting from. Example: Rome bosses will display Sakkara permission amounts.

- Prowling rewards are drawn from two systems. 1) The Positive Pool System: a large pool of defined items including IP, most powers, collectables, and sanctums. Pool rewards are given generally on single scenario, boss fight, and multiple scenario endings. 2) The Set System: a massive variety of reward sets that are designed by groupings. A set includes any number of related items that are drawn on percent chances to deliver any of the goods on that set list. Set lists are specifically aligned to multiple-scenario outcomes and bosses. Set rewards are always stacked on top of Pool rewards to increase the amount, worth, and variety of positive outcomes.

Penalties

- Prowling penalties are derived from negative outcomes, and depend only on one system. The Negative Pool System: mirroring the positive pool system, the negative pool contains a lesser degree of pooled items that are removed from players during a negative outcome. This is usually Red Blood, Black blood, Experience, but may also be energy, rage, or powers.

- Prowling penalties may also result in player death. This is story dependent, or the result of a fight loss against a boss. Player deaths from negative scenarios in prowling do not count in your Player Stats area.

| Bosses & Difficulty Scaling |

Prowling Boss Fights

- Boss fights may be found as single encounters or as part of a multiple encounter. Slaying a boss doles out their head as a trophy, along with other rewards. Bosses are scaled in difficulty. The difficulty scale is indicated by color: White = Fledgling (Easy) | Green = Adept (Medium) | Blue = Noble (Hard) | Purple = Champion (Extreme) | Gold = Legendary (Hellish). These colors adhere to standard RPG color coding.

- As well as their own difficulty level scaling, each boss is also player-scaled. This is factored by player skill points to create a boss fight unique to each player. Player powers are not factored into boss fights.

- During a Boss Fight the devourables from your Darkside inventory are always accessible. These can be used to help defeat a boss should your character need assistance. If you run short of devourables, you can get more on the fly by requesting gifts from clan or purchase devourables from the boss page Purchase Menu.

- While fighting a boss, player-gifted devourables require an update to the devourables tables. Using the Refresh All button will update for any received gifts.

- As with any portion of prowling, boss fights can be skipped by pressing the Prowl button (taking you to a new scenario), or by exiting prowling and entering another portion of the game.

- When initiating a Boss Fight in prowling, you will be removed from the PvP fight list for [2] minutes. After that time you will return to the fight list and be able to be attacked as normal.

- Deaths resulting from a player being killed by a Prowling Boss will be reflected in Player Stats. This follows the same tradition set by Missions of Darkness Bosses.

BASE GAME CHANGES

| Relics |

Sceptre of Janus

- Added Sceptre of Janus to game. Sceptre offers its discoverer Doubled Experience gains for 10 minutes. Sceptre is only found while Prowling. Sceptre lore will has been added to Relic lore in the Morgue > Relics.

- Sceptre of Janus will be disabled during Live Gaming Events

- Sceptre of Janus cannot be shared.

- Normal relics (Armor of Drakul, Fist of Caine, Judgement of Solomon, Talon of Andilaveris, Seven Locks of Samson, Eye of Providence, Blood Poison, Lillith’s Pact, Cup of Judas) can be found in Prowling.

- All Relics (Sceptre of Janus , Armor of Drakul, Fist of Caine, Judgement of Solomon, Talon of Andilaveris, Seven Locks of Samson, Eye of Providence, Blood Poison, Lillith’s Pact, Cup of Judas) will have no effect on Boss fights in Prowling.

- As with normal powers, legendary powers can be equipped for full clan.

- Unique extra abilities on legendary powers do not stack, and procs only for the player who owns it.

- In an effort to keep future legendary powers flexible in display, legendary powers ignore the standard RPG color code (Gold). Instead they are displayed with an elongated horizontal size (128px x 64px) and on their own page to denote their status.

- Achievement power is considered a Rare power, and will display in the Powers page under appropriate rare discipline section.

Prowling Powers

- Added numerous powers only available in Prowling, including rares and fusibles.

Event Powers

- Added (5) new Event powers. (see Fusion Notes)

| Devourables |

Devourables Balancing

- Devourables are now capped to [2] per specific item, instead of [4] overall total items. Total per item type is now 8 instead of 4.

- Devourables are now purchasable, with defined Instinct Points cost. Devourables are purchasable in the Prowling Boss interface. Purchased devourables will ignore max per item caps and can be bought indefinitely. They can also be gifted.

- If a purchased devourable item count becomes higher than its per item cap, received gifts of that devourable type will return a dud gifts until item count falls below cap.

- When gifted devourables received reach the per item cap, future received gifts of that devourable type will return a dud gifts until item count falls below cap.

- When crafting a devourable to per item cap, future crafted gifts will return a dud. As usual, you will lose your ingredients on a dud.

- Devourables given as event rewards will continue to stack as normal.

| Council |

Replenish Balancing

- Purchasing a Rage, Energy or Health replenish from Council page while fighting a Prowling Boss will result in an immediate loss against a Prowling Boss. Purchasing Rage, Energy or Health replenish from Council during gameplay outside of prowling will operate as normal.

- Missions of Darkness Bosses (Slayer, Lycan, Clan Leader, Gang Leader) will now fail when rage, energy, or health is purchased from the Council during a boss fight. Previously only a health purchase would fail a mission boss.

| Achievements |

Catacombs

- Removed Crytpograms (Passage 2) from the game.

- Passage 2 will now be home to Achievements, and the item section has been renamed from Secret Alcove to "Secret Shrine".

- Acheivements will be displayed when visiting a fellow player's catacombs. Check up on your friends, clan and frenemies to see their achievements!

- Achievement rarities are determined by the highest rarity of boss head required in each achievement grouping. If a recipe contains only collectables, it’s defaulted to the lowest rarity (white/gray).

- Added (1) special recipe to create a new rare power, using all achievements as ingredients.

- When all achievements in Passage 2 are used to fuse the achievement power, achievements will continue to display in Passage 2.

- Added (4) new base ingredients for fusing Sanctums: Foundations, Planks, Fittings, Decor. These will serve as the new logical method for Sanctum creation. This change is not retroactive, and will only apply to future fusible sanctums.

- Added (3) new base ingredients for fusing powers: Spell of Transmutation, Spell of Equilibrium, and Spell of Dissolution. These new bases are obtained by fusion. Each new base Spell will apply to specific stat circumstances: Attack based (SoT), Defense based (SoD), and Balanced (SoE). Base spells are a signifier and will be included with other ingredients. This change is not retroactive, and will only apply to future, select fusibles.

- Added (5) new recipes to cover lingering past Event powers. Recipes will fuse to new powers. New powers will represent the events from which the ingredients were obtained.

| Player Stats |

Kills

- Negative scenarios that result in death do not count toward your death statistics, however being killed by another player while prowling counts toward your death stats as normal.

- Boss fights that result in death do not count toward your death statistics, however being killed by another player while fighting a boss counts toward your death stats as normal.

Art & Graphics

Sanctums

- Added (1) Legendary sanctum, attained via fusion. Comes with rare power. Rare power is stackable. Make as many as you can!

- Added (5) Prowling Classic sanctums, attained via fusion.

- Added (2) Prowling Power sanctums, attained via fusion.

- Added (3) new classes to the Sanctum Class Stamps system: Legendary, Prowling (Classic), and Prowling (Power). Prowling Classic and Prowling Power indicate that the sanctums were obtained from prowling.

- Sanctum Class Stamps have been redesigned for better legibility and easier recognition. Icons have been replaced on some stamps, but he system itself remains the same.

- Sanctum on-hover Previews have been revised to better showcase sanctum art, increased legibility of included powers, and adding in sanctum class for quick identification. This will apply to all sanctums going forward, with previous sanctum previews receiving the redesign at a later date.

Catacombs

- Small design fixes and minor redesigns to clean up the look of the catacombs.

Home Page

- Council and Vintage Power areas now display with the intended purchase buttons graphics.

Favor Points

- Favor Points icon has been redesigned game-wide to better distinguish the virtual currency from other currencies, powers and collectables.

Icons

- Master icons have been redesigned and new icons have been created specifically for display as rewards in prowling. These include Rage, Energy, Health, Experience, Red Blood, black Blood, FP, IP, and Free Prowls.

*Note: Clearing your browser cache may be necessary to see some art/graphic updates.

Known IssuesKnown issues are items that are not game-breaking and will be fixed in a later update.

- When receiving a penalty on rage or energy, timers will occasionally misrepresent information. This is a display-only issue, and a page refresh resolves it.

- There are likely numerous typos and grammatical errors. Sorry, we let Norman type for us sometimes. We'll try to get them fixed as we can!

Non-IssuesNon-issues are items that seem like a bug, but are intended functionality.

- When fighting a boss and nearing the end of the fight, the page transfers to result without displaying the final hit. You didn't want yet another button, did you?

- When on a multiple with a single choice button and the story instructions are to "search", it may appear that nothing is happening on button press. The page is reloading the same scenario and prompting to you search again (because you didn't find it yet). Keep pressing the button until the scenario moves on.

- When lost forever in the Catacombs of Rome, it may seem that occasionally the buttons have stuck in one place. What's happened is the buttons have randomly generated their positions to the same position you had before. Keep choosing (and hopefully not lose your mind in there!) until you see them change positions again.